This collection contains genealogy material concerning the Tucker family of Pitt County, North Carolina, and correspondence (1983-1999), legal documents, maps and photographs related to the Tucker Family Cemetery in Greenville, Pitt County, North Carolina. Documented are attempts to keep up the cemetery, protect it from encroachment from neighboring Arlington Boulevard due to needs to widen the road, and from encroachment by neighbors.
Ben Louis Harris was the son of Joseph Ollen Harris and Myrrha E. Tucker Harris and grandson to Warren Keeley Tucker and Susan Elizabeth Tucker Tucker of Pitt County, North Carolina. He was born on August 22, 1917, grew up in Winterville, Pitt County, North Carolina, graduated from East Carolina Teachers College (now East Carolina University) in Greenville, North Carolina, and taught in high school for a few years. Ben Harris had a 27-year career in the Navy starting with World War II during which time he married Martha Witherspoon and had a son Joe Harris. They settled in Coronado, California, where he worked with Old Republic Life Insurance Company. Martha died after 52 years of marriage and he remarried to Rachel Adams. Harris died in Coronado, California, on June 14, 2010, and was buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
Sources: July 8, 2010, obituary of Ben Harris found in the Coronado, California, newspaper. Material in this collection.
Ben L. Harris was a grandson of Warren Keeley Tucker and Susan Elizabeth Tucker Tucker of Pitt County, North Carolina, and was very interested in family history. His grandparents were buried in the Tucker Family Cemetery (also known as the Warren K. and Susan Tucker Cemetery) in Greenville, Pitt County, North Carolina. Even though Harris lived in Coronado, California, he and his wife Martha often came to visit relatives and check out the condition of the cemetery. Beginning in 1945 after WWII ended, Harris agreed to be in charge of seeing that the cemetery and its grounds were kept in good condition. Periodically he sent out reports on the cemetery to other Tucker family descendants.
The major focus of this collection is on working out an acceptable deal for the city to pay for acquiring an unused portion of the cemetery for a right-of-way for the expansion of adjacent Arlington Boulevard. Included is correspondence (1988-1992) between Harris (and a local law firm) and the Greenville city planner, director of development, and the director of engineering and inspections, and maps and blueprints. At the same time there is correspondence (1993-1994) with the lawyers representing adjacent neighbors to the cemetery related to encroachment on the cemetery property.
The remainder of the collection includes reports on the cemetery to relatives describing the setup of a permanent fund to pay for the upkeep of the cemetery and to repair tombstones, and to plan for the 1997 Tucker Family Reunion. A few photographs of the cemetery and the publication "The Tucker Family from Francis Tucker Through to the Present Generation as of March 31, 1939" by Harry Aylwin Jacobs are also included.
The oversize folder contains blueprints and maps (1961, 1992, undated) related to the cemetery property.
October 9, 2024, 0.25 cubic feet; Family history, correspondence, blueprints, photographs, and miscellany for Tucker family of Pitt County, NC. Gift of Ben L. Harris. Material was originally cataloged as a Miscellaneous Genealogy when it was received in 2000, but was recataloged in 2024 as a collection on its own.
Gift of Ben L. Harris
Processed by Martha Elmore on October 11, 2024.
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